


Soldiers With Cats In Their Helmets

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fem!Tony, Fun with magic over Bucharest, cat!Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-15 08:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11227059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: She was a skinny black thing with a sleek coat and dark eyes. He didn't know what possessed him to pick her up, nor why she settled so readily against the proximity-warm metal of his shoulder, but he was very thankful for her those two years in Romania.





	Soldiers With Cats In Their Helmets

As far as he could remember - well, erhm - the Commandos had kept pets. Just little things; songbirds, kittens, small dogs in rucksacks. 

It was raining that particular day. Not a soaking downpour, but enough to be drizzly and miserable for pedestrians and street vendors alike. But he'd been out because his addiction to this one vendor's plums was borderline lethal and he was loathe to sacrifice this one thing he really liked for the sake of dry clothes. So, out he was, five of those precious fruits in a clear little baggy. He was just about to leave the shelter of the awning when little pricks in his leg drew his attention downwards. 

She was a skinny black thing with a sleek coat and dark eyes. He didn't know what possessed him to pick her up, nor why she settled so readily against the proximity-warm metal of his shoulder, but he was very thankful for her those two years in Romania.

She sat quietly and calmly inside his jacket, only sticking her head out where she knew it was covered by his baseball cap. She was a curiously smart creature, watching the world move like she was tracking her surroundings. 

Back inside his ratty apartment, he expected her to jump out and strut around with he normal arrogance of a cat. She didn't move until he set her down on the counter next to his little bag of plums, wherein his examination of her revealed something peculiar. 

Between her front legs was a little circle, which he had initially mistaken for an ownership tag, but was actually a tiny glowing machine. When he went to touch it, she ducked her head, hiding it, eyes flicking over his face appraisingly. 

"Does it hurt?" He asked, aborting the gesture to rub one finger between her elegant, soft ears. 

She raised her head, letting him look again. He picked her up, going to sit on his ragged bed, laying her down in the valley of his thighs on her back. She squirmed a little bit, but stayed where he put her. He examined the machine closer, noticing that it was actually embedded in her sternum, not just uncomfortably attached to her fur. She gazed at him worriedly, her little brown-black paws coming to rest gently on his hands. 

"I'm not going to hurt you." He said, stroking down her stomach. "I know what HYDRA weaponry looks like. Whatever that thing is, its not them. And if you're a runaway from a lab or something . . . I understand why you don't want to go back."

She mewled, starting to purr. 

"I'll get you something to eat." He promised, holding her in his arms as he walked to the cupboards. He didn't have much, but he kept protein in spades. He had enough tuna to feed both of them for months. 

* * *

She was wary of him for the first couple of months. She made sure she was never underfoot, scampered away when he tried to pick her up, but was unwilling to go outside. Maybe she thought he wouldn't let her back in. 

But as time wore on, she got more comfortable with him. 

She scared him with her first outreach attempt. She had walked up to him as he slept - not uncommon - but she walked onto his shoulder and the touch made him bolt upright, knife in his flesh hand. Had she of run, its likely he would have stabbed her. She froze in terror, dark eyes wide. He dropped the knife, collapsing onto the bed. To his surprise, he felt the paw again. He looked over and once she had his attention, she climbed carefully onto his chest, tucking herself under his chin on his collarbones and purring in a low, soothing rhythm. 

This time, the tears leaked out of him despite his control. He choked back the sobs, focusing instead on petting her.

* * *

She would sit on his shoulder when he wrote. Diary upon diary of half-fried memories, just in case. She barely moved when they did this together, just watching, like she was reading, as he wrote. 

He only kept hours had passed and dusk was falling when she would jump off, obstinately sitting in the middle of the page and pawing at his hand. 

He would always smile and pet her, scratching her ears. 

"You take such good care of me." He said, getting up and stretching. "What would I do without you?"

She meowed, cocking her head almost sarcastically. He picked her up, cradling her against his chest and nuzzling his nose behind her ear. 

"I love you." He whispered, his following kiss very tender. He pulled back to look in her eyes. She stared back, reaching up to press a gentle paw against his cheek. His hand rumbled with her purring. "I really do."

She let him carry her for the rest of the night, purring wildly the whole time.

* * *

"Is she a friend of yours?" 

He looked over his shoulder, finding his little feline peeking out of his knapsack. A little smile came to his lips. "She is."

"A beautiful animal." The vendor chuckled. "Can't say I've ever seen someone take their cat out with them, though."

"Sometimes, I think she keeps me sane." He replied. 

The vendor looked a little softer. "Ah. A veteran. I understand. My brother-in-law would not have come home if not for his dog."

He reached back to pet her and she immediately surrendered to his touch. 

No matter how many times it happened, he was always surprised she was so docile. She would sit in his backpack for hours without so much as a mewl. She would run all his errands with him, sit perched on his shoulder while he cooked, tangle around his legs when she was getting tired and climb up his chest when she wanted petting. He would wake up to her purring loudly in his ear if he'd been having a nightmare, carefully kneading his hair. She followed him around loyally, allowing him to do pretty much anything with her as long as he was careful of the little machine in her chest. He picked her up once without thinking, pressing it inwards too hard. She threw up blood, wove around his living room as if delirious in pain and wouldn't let herself be picked up again for another two months. 

They had been awful months. It wasn't hard to notice how much he had come to rely on her presence, but when she would skitter away from him, he felt an almost physical pain in his chest. He even cried a couple of times, the tide of despair overwhelming. She jumped up onto the armrest at the time, wanting to help but unwilling to risk further injury. To make up for his indiscretion, he massaged her ribcage every evening and tucked her into the crook of his flesh arm, insulating her against the Romanian winter.

* * *

One night, the entire apartment was freezing. 

He couldn't afford a heating unit or the electricity to accompany that. Normally, it wouldn't be an issue. He was a super soldier, built to withstand all the worst climates with very little maintenance. She, however, was far from.

Even after a year and a half with him, she was still skinny and wasn't exactly used to the floor creeping with frost. Even sitting on his shoulder, she was shivering hard enough to shake herself off her perch. 

"I'm so sorry." He cooed, tucking her into his shirt, inside his jacket. Her peats were like icicles against his skin and as uncomfortable and triggering as the sensation was, he had to overcome it. He'd taken her in, it was his job to take care of her. What kind of person let something that means to much to them pass away of neglect?

Well, he had been for the past seventy years. But he was free now, able to do whatever he wanted and be a good person. He was going to take care of his kitten if it killed him.

He ran the shower until the room was thick with hot steam before he pulled her out, setting her on his towel, all nice and warm from the heat, and undressed. He was slow with his shower, drawing it out until it started to go cold just to let the heat sink in through her coat. He dressed in his night attire quickly, tucking her back into his clothes before she could chill. He quickly brushed his teeth and dried his hair before grabbing his bedding, wrapping it around them, and braving the apartment. They settled down on the mattress, tucked inside their cocoon, and slept out the terrible cold spell.

* * *

Seeing Steve in his apartment broke the faint spell of peace these last years had brought him.

 _This is where we part ways_. He thought, carefully pulling her from his hood, where she had been when he went to visit his vendor. She looked between the two men, but stayed stubbornly about his ankles. 

It was downhill from there. 

He watched her run and hide when the armed men came in and he was grateful. He didn't want her to get hurt. 

As soon as he jumped from the balcony, he wanted to run right back up and grab her. Her yowl at the abandonment was awful, but there was nothing he could do. Not right now. He had to lose them. Then he would come back, grab her, tuck her into his jacket and vanish. But he couldn't run with her in his arms, especially if he has to fight, and he would rather she have to fend for herself than get killed because of him. She was a good cat - she would find someone to love her better than he could. 

* * *

When the door opened to the cell where his little cube was being held in Berlin, he wasn't expecting the woman that walked in. She wasn't particularly tall and seemed a little gaunt. She was wearing part of a business suit, but the button down was open just enough to see a blue-glowing machine embedded in her chest. Her hair was long and silky, a soft brown so dark it looked black. Her eyes, too, were pools of dark chocolate as quiet as they were intelligent, thoughtful and insightful. 

"I gotta admit, after two years of being like that, I never thought I would get back." She said abruptly, voice much stronger than he anticipated. "And I probably wouldn't have survived it if it weren't for you."

"I don't think I know you."

"With a memory like yours, that's probably right." She walked up to the glass. "But you do."

He just blinked.

She backed away and paced the room. "I was in a mission. I was fighting over Bucharest with some amateur magician. I'm still unsure how he did what he did. Or how the curse broke, for that matter. All I know is that I crashed the armour and stepped out of it on four little furry legs. I wandered the streets for some time, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do without being able to talk when I find you."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're telling me you're my cat?"

She winced. "I know I sound crazy, but I can tell you all the different magazines and newspapers you used to gather information on Steve. I can tell you the brand of tuna you used to feed me. I can tell you the name of your plum vendor. I can tell you the exact way you would hold me when you woke up from another nightmare about an assassination."

"Who are you?"

She pursed her lips, looking away. "I know you weren't even in Vienna to blow up the summit. You would have taken me with you. But you don't work for HYDRA anymore. Maybe you would have been able to afford heat, but they're stingy bastards, so who knows."

"Please, I want to know your name."

She met his gaze again. "Tony Stark."

He chuckled to himself, low and heartfelt. "My cat was Iron Man."

"You took care of me, I'm going to take care of you." She frowned, looking around them at the barren room. "I just need you to give me some time to pull some strings."

* * *

Months later he found himself sitting on the edge of a huge, lavish bed that he didn't know what to do with, as warm as could be and in the most comfortable nightclothes he'd ever owned in either of his lives. He looked up at the gentle knock on his door. 

Tony peered around the edge of the door. "Okay, so call this force of habit, but I just can't sleep anymore. Hardly more than a few hours since I turned back. Can I sleep here tonight?"

He blinked before he realized she was waiting for a response. "Sure."

Laying in bed with her, she was heavier than he was used to, but the familiar sense of calm rushed over his senses like an incoming tide. Almost the moment they settled, both of them fell asleep. She was tucked right against his chest and the glowing machine hummed between them, almost like a purr. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
